Three of the most senior Court of Appeal judges in England and Wales on Wednesday authorized the public release of documents concerning the secret rendition and alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed. The ACLU has the details.

While in detention, Mohamed was subjected to physical and psychological abuse by his captors. Upon his release, Mohamed sought documents from the British government that would confirm that U.K. officials were aware of and complicit in his abuse by U.S. forces. Today's ruling orders the disclosure of seven previously suppressed paragraphs from an earlier court ruling that summarize British government documents related to Mohamed's detention and torture while under the control of U.S. authorities.

The CIA had provided the documents to MI5. Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for President Barack Obama, criticized the ruling, saying:

"We're deeply disappointed with the court's judgment because we shared this information in confidence and with certain expectations.

Last week I wrote that the Center for Constitutional Rights questioned President Barack Obama's January 22 orders on interrogation and closing Guantanamo, cautioning that while they in no uncertain terms stated the CIA must close its secret black hole prisons, they may have left a loophole for the CIA to resume them. A secret or extraordinary rendition refers to the practice of the CIA whereby it kidnaps suspects and flies them to a country where they are held in secret prisons and interrogated by non U.S. personnel, where the Red Cross has no access to them and no lists are made available as to who or how many people are victims of the practice. Some of the countries these suspects are shipped to practice torture.

The ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights and other human rights groups have been campaigning for several years to stop secret renditions. I have always agreed with them that secret renditions must stop. Now there's a question over whether Obama fully ordered it stopped or not. The Timesonline today: [More...]